The Oak-leaved Hornbeam of Park Merwestein

Two different leaves grow off the same twigs on this hornbeam: some lobed like an oak's, some plain like an ordinary hornbeam's. That is exactly what the cultivar name says, Carpinus betulus 'Quercifolia', the oak-leaved hornbeam, and it is a genuine grafting curiosity rather than a description anyone exaggerated. The national register bands its planting to 1850 to 1860, which puts it at roughly 166 to 176 years old. It has spent that whole span beside the path that circles the deer enclosure in Park Merwestein, one of Dordrecht's older public parks. A tree like this is exactly what a Victorian-era planting scheme reached for: something a nurseryman had found doing something odd, worth a spot in a park built for paying visitors to stroll through. Dordrecht's own walking route, run by the local Bomenridders, stops here as number eight of nine and leads with the same two-leaf trick, which is a good sign the oddity still reads clearly a century and a half on. No girth has ever been recorded for it. That is unremarkable among Dutch register trees, but worth saying plainly rather than leaving the field blank without comment.